The existing description of hot electron transport in silicon dioxide contains the deficiency that the resulting electron inverse mean free paths and loss rates associated with electron-acoustic phonon scattering continue to increase in an unphysical way at energies above Egap. One can remove that discrepancy by introducing a pseudo-potential which reflects the screened atom characteristic of higher energy electron-lattice interactions. The low energy, low q scattering, described in terms of the deformation potential, is then recovered, intact, in the low q limit. The use of the screened Coulomb potential introduces no adjustable parameters and results in an acoustic scattering cross section which approaches the phase shift derived elastic scattering cross section at E ≳ Egap.

A distribution function for the chord lengths through a rectangular body is developed. Since the trajectories of high-energy massive particles are straight lines, the chord-length distribution function describes the path-length distribution on an object exposed to the cosmic-ray flux. The formalism has application to the energy deposited in satellite-borne microelectronic circuitry by cosmic rays.

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The interaction of fast heavy ions and alpha particles with microelectronic cells is examined. An analytic expression for the event rate due to the cosmic flux is derived based on the track length distribution in rectangular volumes. Both transient (soft errors) and permanent (oxide damage) effects are considered. The multiple hit consequences of the LSI/VLSI cells lying in a common plane are developed.

A formalism is presented which permits the calculation of electronic upsets caused by the reaction products from 14 MeV neutrons on silicon. The derivation of the formalism is developed from work in the field of radiobiology/microdosimetry. The equations follow from the mathematics of geometrical probability and are neither intuitive nor model dependent. The parameters required are the dimensions of the sensitive volume and the threshold energy for electronic upset. The results are general in the sense that any reaction, within the limits stated, can be described. Application is made to the specific case of soft error production in dynamic RAM's.